Binning is a technique used in digital cameras to improve the sensitivity of the camera when the scene is under a low light condition. Binning involves combining at least two pixels into a single pixel that as a result is more sensitive to light in the scene, where this combining is typically performed prior to readout and digitizing of the new pixel signal. As a result, the photo-generated charge carriers of the two or more pixels accumulate, which improves signal to noise ratio, thereby enabling higher quality image recording of scenes that have relatively low light. A further advantage of binning is higher image repetition rate or image recording frequency, also referred to as capture frame rate, due to a lower spatial resolution. In other words, there are fewer new pixels being read and digitized, which enables the frame rate to increase. Binning, however, does have some disadvantages. There is a reduction in spatial resolution due to the combining of pixels. In addition, the combination of the pixels may not be symmetrical, so that, for example, unequal numbers of pixels in the x and y direction are combined. This results in distortion and requires digital image processing to correct. A further concern arises when the image sensor is operating in streaming mode and the sequence of frames that are being output by the sensor are processed and then displayed to the camera's user by an electronic view finder. This is also referred to as the preview mode of operation. The particular concern here is the risk of dropping too many frames when switching or transitioning between binning mode and non-binning mode. For instance, while a camera may be configured to run at a particular frame rate in streaming mode, for example, 15 frames per second, enough image buffers need to be allocated in main memory so that the frames do not start overwriting each other or are not “held up” at the sensor. Usually, a direct memory access facility is provided for use by the image sensor output interface, to rapidly stream its frames directly to the allocated image buffers in memory. To avoid missing or dropping frames, a larger number of memory buffers may be allocated. Alternatively, system latency may be reduced such that the frames are “removed” from the buffers more quickly. A further option is to restrict the amount of image signal processing (ISP) enhancement that is being performed by an ISP pipeline upon the raw frames (that have been written into the image buffers). Finally, the processing power of the ISP pipeline buffer may be increased. In most instances associated with consumer grade electronic cameras that use CMOS sensors, however, it is typically unavoidable that at least one frame will be dropped or missed during a transition between binning and non-binning. This is at least partly due to the image sensor using an electronic rolling shutter (rather than a global shutter), such that at any given instant in time, there are two successive frames being captured by the sensor. A challenge therefore is to keep the number of dropped frames as low as possible, thereby contributing to smoother moving pictures shown to the user during preview.